Saturday, 27 July 2013

Disabled sisters get loans

Pramila Krishnan

Chennai, July 29: The Tamil Nadu State Apex Co-operative Bank (TNSC) in Chennai has come forward to provide loans to the disabled sisters in Dharmapuri following the article published in Deccan Chronicle newspaper last week, about how they were waiting for an year to get loans from banks in their town to expand their shop.
Not just that, many Deccan Chronicle readers have called the sisters encouraged and assured to help them to expand their petty shop. Some readers took details of the sisters and charted plans to improve the petty shop into a small departmental store by adding products apart from eatables, which they are selling now.

Bubbling with energy, paralysed sisters Malliga (22), Kavitha (20) thanked me for the story. Victims of Lysosomal disorder, which stunts their growth, these sisters wanted to expand their petty shop and meet their medical expenses in order to unburden their parents. But the banks delayed the disbursal for the last one-year. After the article, TNSC and DC readers volunteered to help them.

Sharing the joy, Malliga and Kavitha said, “We are touched by the calls by readers. Many of them encouraged us. This news story gives us confidence and dream for big in life. A reader from Chennai told us that he would send us a fridge so that we could start selling soft drinks in our store. Another reader told us that he would send a stock of slippers shortly.”

The TNSC bank officials said that they would issue Rs.40, 000 to the sisters as loans on Wednesday. “We have made a special provision by which the monthly monetary assistance given by the government to Kavitha and Malliga would be treated as surety for the loans and they could start buying products for their shop. A savings account would be opened in their names and loans would be disbursed immediately,” they said.